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Gèn (Keeping Still). Hexagram 52 (Sheet 5 from the Series "Book of Changes" (I Ching – 易經)

Alexander Aksinin

Basic information

ID: Г-IV-4083
Author: Alexander Aksinin
Name: Gèn (Keeping Still). Hexagram 52 (Sheet 5 from the Series "Book of Changes" (I Ching – 易經)
Date of creation: 1984
Technique: etching
Material: imprint on paper
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 10.5 x 7.9

Additionally

Type: printmaking
Provenance: Courtesy of V. Onusaitis, 1987

Information about author

Author: Alexander Aksinin
Artist's lifetime: 1949–1985
Country: the Ukrainian SSR, now Ukraine
Biography: Alexander Aksinin was a graphic artist and one of the brightest representatives of Lviv nonconformist culture. He was born on October 2, 1949, in Lviv, in the family of a military cartographer and railroad official of the Lviv railway. Between 1963 and 1966, he received his art education at the evening art school in Lviv. Between 1967 and 1972, the artist continued his studies at the Ivan Fedorov Ukrainian Polygraphic Institute, where he specialised in Graphic Art. After graduation, Aksinin served in the Soviet Army, where he participated in designing the exposition of the Military History Museum. Between 1974 and 1977, he worked as an art designer in an industrial design office. In 1977, he left the official service and began to work exclusively as a freelance artist. The apartment of Aksinin and his wife, the writer and artist Engelina (Gelya) Buriakovska (1944–1982), became one of the Lviv centres of informal art; the first home exhibitions were held here. Alexander and Gelya were well acquainted with the representatives of the cultural underground of Moscow and Leningrad, particularly with Dmytro Prihov, Viktor Kryvulin, Illia Kabakov, and others. They also had friendly relations with Baltic artists, such as Tõnis Vint, with whom Alexander developed a close rapport and Polish ones. Since 1974, Aksinin participated in group exhibitions; in 1979, his first personal exhibition was organised in Tallinn with the assistance of the artist Tõnis Vint. In the early 1980s, the poet Viktor Kryvulin helped to arrange several of Aksinin's "kvartirnik" exhibitions in Leningrad and Moscow.
On May 3, 1985, on his way back from Tallinn, Alexander Aksinin died in a plane crash over Zolochiv near Lviv. During his lifetime, the artist created 343 etchings, about 200 sheets of uniquely drawn graphics (drawings in watercolour, Indian ink, and gouache, including prints), as well as five paintings. 27 volumes of the artist's diaries for the period from 1965 to 1985 contain more than 200 sketches and a large number of drawings-ideas; they are partially publicly available on the artist's website. In 2015, Alexander Aksinin's etching series "Boskhiana" was included in the permanent exposition of the Jheronimus Bosch Art Center in Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. The works are stored in the Lviv National Art Gallery, the Estonian Art Museum, and the National Art Museum of Ukraine. In 1981, Alexander Aksinin wrote his laconic autobiography for an article by Viktor Kryvulin, in which he consciously contrasted his inner world with external events, combining the facts of his biography with his own artistic and metaphysical experience: "In 1949, a seemingly russian man was born in the seemingly European city of Lviv. Orthodox Christian. In 1972 – received a diploma from the Polygraphic Institute in the field of Graphic Art. In 1977 – the first revelation with a concomitant sense of time. In 1981 – the second revelation with a concomitant sense of eternity. In 1979 – the first solo exhibition in Tallinn. In 1981 – the second one in Poland. That is all."

Object description

Alexander Aksinin's legacy of graphic works includes a series of etchings based on some literary works and a visual interpretation of the hexagrams of the ancient Chinese "Book of Changes" (1984–1985).
The work is the fifth of 14 sheets of an unfinished series of hexagrams from the ancient Chinese book "I Ching". It was also known as "The Book of Changes" and stated as one of five canons of Confucianism in the 2d century BC. Alexander Aksinin had always been interested in Far Eastern philosophy. He worked on a series of hexagrams for "The Book of Changes" from 1984 to 1985 (until his death in May 1985). As a result, the artist managed to create 14 compositions, each illustrating a particular piece of 64 hexagrams. Each work was dedicated to a specific individual.
Alexander Aksinin created Hexagram 52, Gèn (Keeping Still), as a birthday present to Yuriі Hittik. The author's dedication, saying, "To Yurii L. Hittik / ♀ (symbol of Venus)", was placed in the second column of the lower text strip of the plate. Having made 10 imprints with the above dedication, the artist cut the lower part of the strip. So, the forthcoming etchings, including the one kept in Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery, were created using a cut plate without the final part of the text.
The composition consists of illustrative and textual sections. In the foreground, against the black sky, one can see a giant structure resembling a faceted semi-folded screen depicting fragments of the dragon's body on the faces. The black dots are connected by lines above the dragon. A seated female figure is schematically represented on the axis of the imprint at the bottom, between the facets of the structure. The woman focuses her attention on one of the black dots on the wall. This alludes to the story of Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen teachings. Legend has it that while seeking the truth, the monk spent 9 years meditating on a bare wall in a cave.
At the top, on the composition's axis, one can see a small bright circle reminiscent of the moon or a planet. It is placed on the background of the black sky. Near the edges of the structure, arranged in the perspective on the left, another barely visible figure is accentuated by the circle of the celestial body in the sky. To the right of the dominant composition, that is, the construction with the female figure, there are some additional elements. It is a bird in the foreground that resembles the Ibis bird, a symbol of Thoth, the ancient Egyptian deity of wisdom, and mountain peaks depicted in perspective and partially reflected in one facet of the screen.
Below the illustration, there is a text that contains Alexander Aksinin's interpretation of the six positions of Hexagram 52 from "I Ching" book: "concentration on the toes—favourable for eternal fortitude/ concentration in the calves—you will not save the one you follow/ stop in the hips—they move away from the lower back/ 52/ Gèn keeping still/ 4 / the fourth six—concentration in the torso/ stop in the neck—in speeches let there be perseverance/ strengthen the concentration—happiness".
It is no coincidence that the artist presented Hexagram 52 of "The Book of Changes" to his friend. Yurii Hittik was a researcher at the Institute of Economics at that time; thus, the hexagram visually depicted scientific knowledge problems. Alexander Aksinin's comprehension of the conceptual context of "I Ching" translates into developing the motives of concentration and deep immersion into the reflection.

Yurii Hittik (b. 1956), a native of Ukraine. Between 1979 and 1990, he worked as a researcher at the Lviv branch of the Institute of Economics. As a friend of Alexander Aksinin, he was honoured with four works by the artist. In 1988, Yurii Hittik published the first complete catalogue of Alexander Aksinin's printed graphics. In 2008, together with his wife, Mariia Shchur, he created a website dedicated to the artist's works. As of today, they continue to maintain the site.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Gèn (Keeping Still). Hexagram 52 (Sheet 5 from the Series "Book of Changes" (I Ching – 易經)

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